In the Fictional City, we walk in silence through the streets of Shiinamachi, in silence through the mud and the sleet, in silence to a coffee shop by the station. We open the door to the coffee shop and we step inside, the coffee shop filled with customers and conversation, and we sit down at a table and she takes off her scarf. Now the conversations stop and the customers stare, and she looks down at the table, at the sugar bowl and the ashtray, and she says, ‘I’m sorry. I want to go home.’
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, he walks through the cigarette smoke, across the sticky floor, and he sits down and he says, ‘Sorry about the other night. I tried to call you, but you’d already left the office.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘Forget it. You’re here now. So what have you got for me, Detective?’
‘Well, it’s not something you can probably print, not for now, but I think it’s something you should know. What they’re not saying in their statements is that there’s a growing feeling among many of the detectives that this case is connected with the Tokumu Kikan and their operations in Occupied China during the war. There are rumours of similar cases to the Teigin case that occurred in Shanghai during the war, that the culprit is ex-Tokumu Kikan, with experience handling medicines and civilians, and that’s who we should be looking for. On the other hand, there are some detectives, particularly the older guys, who think all these rumours are just a distraction, that it’s nothing to do with Tokumu Kikan and Occupied China. So there are almost two rival lines of inquiry now. But, as I say, what I’m telling you is nothing you can print, but there’s also nothing to stop you looking into the China connection, is there?’
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I have walked her streets, I have heard her stories, her stories of old soldiers, her stories of new poisons –
In the Fictional City, her stories in my notebook.
Now I take these stories from my notebook and I write them out. I write them out in letters. In letters, on grids –
TEIGIN POLICE CHASE POISON SCHOOL LEAD
SCAP Assistance Sought In Hunt For Mass Murderer
TOKYO — Police investigating the Teikoku Bank ‘Poison Holdup’ case are now actively pursuing two new lines of inquiry in their frantic efforts to catch the cold-blooded fiend responsible for the diabolical poison-murders.
Senior detectives have requested the assistance of the SCAP Public Safety Division in locating a Lieutenant Hornet and a Lieutenant Parker, both names being used by the mass killer and associated with typhus disinfecting teams in the Tokyo area.
Witnesses at the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank reported the suspect as saying, ‘I came here with Lieutenant Parker in a jeep because a new typhus case happened in the vicinity.’ While at the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank, the same individual is reported as saying, ‘I came here because there have been many dysentery cases in the area. Lieutenant Hornet will be here soon.’
Police believe Lieutenant Hornet to have been associated with the Toshima Team in the Ōji and Katsushika Wards, while Lieutenant Parker was associated with the Ebara Disinfecting Team.
Investigators have requested that the Public Safety Division of SCAP provide any information, names and addresses of Japanese individuals either connected with or having knowledge of the disinfecting work done by either of the above lieutenants, particularly interpreters or individuals who speak English.
Meanwhile, police are also checking a new lead concerning ex-personnel of the former Japanese Imperial Chemical Laboratory in Tsudanuma, Chiba-ken.
It is known that experiments were conducted at the Tsudanuma Laboratory with prussic acid as a poison. Police believe that the modus operandi of the Teikoku Bank ‘Poison Holdup’ case and the use of prussic poison by the criminal are very similar to the training developed by Tsudanuma Arsenal.
In the Fictional City, I stop writing and I read what I have written. These letters in their grids. I stop reading. Now I get up from my desk, and I walk down the long, long table to my editor’s desk –
‘Ah, Takeuchi,’ smiles Ono. ‘What have you got for me today? Something meaty, I hope, something juicy …’
I hand him the paper. I say, ‘I think so.’
Ono sits back in his chair. He adjusts his glasses. He starts to read, nodding, nodding, nodding and now smiling, he says, ‘Great!’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘They’re denying it, of course …’
‘Of course,’ says Ono. ‘But that’s their problem. Not yours.’
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in the genkan to her house, she looks at the bunch of flowers in my hand, and she asks, ‘Why?’
‘The other day,’ I say. ‘It was a mistake. The coffee shop. I didn’t think. All those people. It was a bad idea …’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she says.
I hold out the flowers. I say, ‘Please. They are for you …’
She bows. She takes the flowers. She says, ‘Thank you.’
The door to her house closes now, locked again.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, among the stained-suits and the bad-skins, beneath the swing band and the reflecting lights, he hisses, ‘I was taking a big risk telling you the things I did, showing the documents I did. A big, big risk. And what for? For nothing. I read your so-called newspaper every day and every day I see nothing. Nothing about the SCAP connection, nothing about the Tsudanuma Arsenal. So it seems to me I took a big, big risk for nothing …’
‘Not exactly nothing,’ I tell him. ‘Yes, you took a risk, but you also took my cash. I paid you …’
‘Not enough. Not enough for the risk I took. So I want to know what’s happening, why I took a risk for nothing …’
‘I wrote the story,’ I tell him. ‘I gave it to my boss, he read it in front of me and he liked it, liked it very much …’
‘So where is it then, this story of yours, this story your editor says he liked, liked so very much?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
He stands up. He says, ‘Well, find out. Or you can forget about any more help, any more stories from me.’
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I stand before my editor’s desk at the head of the long, long table and I say, ‘Excuse me, Boss …’
‘Takeuchi,’ mutters Ono, not smiling. ‘What is it?’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I say. ‘But I was wondering what had happened to that piece I wrote on the Poison School? You’d seemed very happy with it, you’d said you liked it, but…’
‘Yes,’ nods Ono. ‘I did like it. Very much …’
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘But it hasn’t run yet…’
‘Not yet,’ says Ono. ‘Not been the time, not yet. Thought we’d wait and see if there was any statement from the MPB first. Maybe then get some quotes from them, flesh it out.’
‘I see,’ I say.
‘I’ve told you before,’ he tells me again. ‘In our business, you have to choose your time, pick your moment carefully. Don’t get me wrong, I like the story, like it very much and I’ll run it, I will. But in our business, there’s always a right time, always a wrong time to run a story. But that’s my job, my worry, not yours. So you just leave it with me, forget about it now, now you’ve done your bit, and you just get after the next one. Because there’s always a next one, isn’t there? Always another story, out there somewhere …’